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EVA 2008 London Conference ~ 22-24 July Veronica Zammitto _____________________________________________________________________ VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES IN VIDEO GAMES Veronica Zammitto School of Interactive Arts and Technology Simon Fraser University 250 -13450 102 Avenue Surrey, British Columbia, V3T 0A3 Canada [email protected] / [email protected] http://www.sfu.ca/~vzammitt Abstract - Video games rely extensively on visual information displayed to the players. Current digital games show enormous amounts of data, and generally in complex 3D virtual worlds. During a game, there is new data added constantly, but it’s also important to have access to information already collected. Menus, minimaps, aiming cursor, character’s health and capabilities are some of the data categories displayed in games. This paper aims to identify how video games present useful visual information to the player, if principles of visualization are applied, and highlight techniques that would be addressed to games for improving their data visualization. VIDEOGAMES AND VISUALIZATION Videogames relies extensively on the information displayed on the screen. It is given to the user in many ways and is necessary for continuing and advancing through the game. If the information is not correctly visualized and the user misses it, it might jeopardize her performance; this would transform what is meant to be a pleasant activity into a frustrating one. Playing a game is an immersive experience, the interface should not be a reminder that this is all about a game, specialist game interface designers agree that a good interface is the one that is not noticed [3, 6]. It is considered that aesthetic is an important factor, and it should be consistent with the game world. It is a common practice that throughout the game the core interface does not change; this might be one of the reasons why in advertisement screenshots the interface is not shown, otherwise screenshots would be alike and not transmit a dynamic impression of the game. The vast majority of the literature that deals with visualization in games belongs to the field of Game Interface Design, a branch of game development. The other areas that contribute to game visualization are Information Visualization and the younger game studies discipline [4]. In the literature, there is no general agreement regarding the terminology for referring to the different elements of what is being displayed in the games. It might change according to the author’s background and the genre of the game [6]. Saunders and Novak (2007) mention that: “In the context of game development, the term ‘interface’ refers to anything that helps the player interact with the game. It includes hardware such as console controllers, computer keyboards, and television monitors. Game components such as health bars, menus, and targeting reticles are also parts of the interface. Even the game characters can be considered interface elements!” This wide definition of interface is the top of the iceberg of a need for a better terminology and classification of the information visualized in digital games. To contribute to this task, in this paper a successful title of three game genre are analyzed 267 EVA 2008 London Conference ~ 22-24 July Veronica Zammitto _____________________________________________________________________ in order to identify what the critical information is, how it is displayed, what visualization techniques are employed and what could be improved. Heads-Up Display (HUD) This is the term employed for referring to a method for game interface. Its main characteristic is that it uses transparences to avoid obstructing what is happening. It takes its name from HUDs used in real life, such us in aircraft (figure 1 A). This term is used indiscriminately for referring to the permanent type of information given to the player, for example: health status, available weapons, armor, resources, among others. It varies radically depending on the game genre. For getting a better immersion, HUDs are designed to match the game world context, like in Stars Wars: Republic Commando, the HUD is presented as the avatar helmet (figure 1 B). Nowadays, there is a trend in the game industry to have minimalist HUDs, with as little information as possible [6, 12]. Figure 1 A. On the left, view using a HUD in a Boeing 727. Figure 1 B. On the right, HUD helmet-like in Star Wars. Videogames have changed substantially since they appeared, and have evolved into different genres. Each genre provides certain goals that will require prototypical tasks to achieve them. For this paper, I will follow the game genre taxonomy presented by Ernest Adams and Andrew Rollings [5]. They divided all games into nine genres: ‘Action’, ‘Strategy’, ‘Role-Playing’, ‘Sports’, ‘Vehicles-Simulations’, ‘Construction- and-Management-Simulations’, ‘Adventure’, ‘Online-Games’ and ‘Artificial-Life- Puzzle-games-and-others’. Going over all different genres would exceed the scope of this paper. I selected three popular genres and a main game example for each: First- Person Shooter subgenre from Action Games (example: Half Life 2 by Valve), Real- Time Strategy subgenre from Strategy Games (example: Command & Conquer 3 by Electronic Arts), and Massively-Multiplayer Online subgenre from Online Games (example: World of WarCraft by Blizzard). GAME GENRES In this section, I will present for each selected genre: what tasks the gamer has to do for achieving the given goals, what information is given to the player, and what visualization techniques are employed. First- Person Shooter (FPS): It belongs to the Action Genre. Playing an FPS game requires a reaction-based skill, this means a fast reaction time for hand-eye coordination. Violence is a game mechanism that we can find in most shooter games. The player’s character, her avatar, has to move around a 3D world to get to a certain location, on her way enemies will attack her, but she can also attack with a range of weapons. In Half Life 2 (HL2) for the 268 EVA 2008 London Conference ~ 22-24 July Veronica Zammitto _____________________________________________________________________ different game elements (such as, health, ammunition, armor) the quantitative display of data – interval scale type - is the dominant one. This means that numbers will be primary shown to provide information [2]. Examples will be presented for each of these different game elements. Another characteristic of data display in Half Life 2 is that information is visualized only if the element, besides health, is being used or changed. For instance, if the avatar is not using a weapon there will not be information displayed about that element. This dynamic update of the HUD visualization is considered an active interface [6]. The point of view (POV) is the avatar’s one: an egocentric perspective, its characteristic is that we see through the eyes of the avatar. It could be argued that this POV is the most immersive one because character and player share the same view [6]. Out of the different navigation metaphors, ‘walking’ is the one that best suits this POV since there is gravity and there are 6 degrees of freedom, the player can move the avatar up-down, left-right, tilt down, tilt sides, and turn sides. However, from this POV it is difficult to identify from where one is being attacked; it is necessary to provide such information to the player in an effective way. Red vertical bars appear on the screen side from where the player is being attacked. Health is critical information for the player, it determines how much room for mistakes is left. If the player runs out of health, the game is over, and she has to start again. Knowing the health status will help her to decide a strategy, for instance to keep moving but in a stealthy way, or looking for some medical kit to increase health. These decisions radically change the game experience. Changes in health status have to be shown all the time. In this game full health is represented by 100 (see figure 2 A). When health decreases and is dangerously low, color-code changes from its regular color into red. This color-coded technique corresponds to established conventions, meaning red danger for western cultures [11]. See figure 2 B. Figure 2 A (Left). Health, and armor (suit) are displayed on the bottom left of the screen Figure 2 B (Right). Player’s health is very low. She might die if hit. In HF2 the player uses weapons: .357 Magnum, rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, and a “gravity gun” among others. Ammunitions and reloading them are required to use these weapons. When the player is about to run out of ammo, a silhouette of the bullet is shown in red. This is critical information because when reloading the player is not able to fire. When the player completely runs out of ammunition, the number zero in red is displayed. Two techniques are identified here: silhouette, and color coding. Silhouette is a very powerful tool for perceiving the structure of objects. In HL2 bullet silhouettes are shown from a canonical view, this allows an easier recognition [11]. See figure 3 A. Color-coding is used for turning the regular color number (yellow) into red. This scheme also responds to conventions as above mentioned. See figure 3 B. 269 EVA 2008 London Conference ~ 22-24 July Veronica Zammitto _____________________________________________________________________ Figure 3 A. Left, HL2. Bullet silhouette for indicating that reloading is necessary. Figure 3 B. Right, Player has run out of ammunition. The player has to move in a 3D world (“City 17”) and in this game there is no mini- map provided. Hence, constrained paths and landmarks are used for easing navigation. For example, the Combine Citadel is easily spotted, that tower is so high that reaches the clouds; this giant structure helps users get their bearings (see figure 4).

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